top of the heap to third world status in one generation

[mean mr.mustard]

I'm dying already, I would like for money to kill me.

 

[Dirt Bag]

I have known plenty of people with money who were miserable. I have known people with boatloads of money who committed suicide. In fact suicide is more prevalent in higher income populations. Ironically suicide is a phenomenon of the upper class.

Everyone I've known that has killed themselves was poor.

 

[Ignignokt]

I have known plenty of people with money who were miserable. I have known people with boatloads of money who committed suicide. In fact suicide is more prevalent in higher income populations. Ironically suicide is a phenomenon of the upper class.

Not saying you are wrong but i would like to see proof of that....

 

[bigtacofarmer]

Not saying you are wrong but i would like to see proof of that....

I have heard a few stories of rich suicides. Worked accross the street from a guy that had a large portion of a city block and indoor pool, bowling lane, ferrari and Im sure much more. All we ever saw of him was his garage door opening and nice cars coming or going. He was found in his own pool. I would think maintaining great success is just as much pressure as not being successful. And once so far up it can probably get pretty lonely if there is no one to enjoy that type of life with. People that struggle surely have more people to relate too than someone with everything.

 

[packerfan79]

Not saying you are wrong but i would like to see proof of that....

I have to correct that it's high income countries that have higher rates of suicide. In America the extreme poor under 10 k a year are the highest. Then their is an increase in upper middle class who live around wealthier people. Essentially "keeping up with the Jones's".

I can post a link later if you want.

 

[Ignignokt]

I know rich people do commit suicide quite a lot just as poor folks do, but i was doubtful that the rates would be higher than the poor.
Money doesn't fill the holes in peoples hearts or mental issues but it seems like it would band-aid over smaller problems pretty well.... i wouldn't know.

 

[Klompen]

Anyone trying to sell great wealth as some sort of panacea is not being realistic. Wealthy people have plenty of suffering as well, but that is not the point at all. The persistent and toxic belief is that the poor are simply just jealous and want to live like kings too. Certainly there are some who would if they could, but most people just don't want to be stuck on the constant edge of disaster while the ultra-wealthy oligarchs continue to gain more and more wealth when they already have many times what they need. The poor also want to have a fair share of political power and not be so disenfranchised.

The notion that the struggling poor just have bad attitudes is so toxic. We have worked so hard, and been so resourceful, and yet we still just can't get ahead. The entire economy is designed to hold down a large segment of the population while enabling wealth-hoarding oligarchs to needlessly bleed everyone dry. When you're poor you have practically no access to the courts(unless they're trying to convict you of something), you effectively have no say in the state or federal legislatures. The notion that "democracy" actually means anything in this country is laughable.

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

Money is freedom in the sense that it is hard to travel far without it - you need to pay the bus fare, or the train fare, for a ferry/boat ticket or to own or hire a car - or for a plane ticket - unless you are truly adventurous and either just walk, cycle or hitch-hike everywhere, but that can get tricky when trying to cross oceans.

The freedom to travel wherever I want to go - and whenever I want to leave - and the choice in how I want to travel has always been an important freedom for me.

 

[yesum]

Anyone trying to sell great wealth as some sort of panacea is not being realistic. Wealthy people have plenty of suffering as well, but that is not the point at all. The persistent and toxic belief is that the poor are simply just jealous and want to live like kings too. Certainly there are some who would if they could, but most people just don't want to be stuck on the constant edge of disaster while the ultra-wealthy oligarchs continue to gain more and more wealth when they already have many times what they need. The poor also want to have a fair share of political power and not be so disenfranchised.

The notion that the struggling poor just have bad attitudes is so toxic. We have worked so hard, and been so resourceful, and yet we still just can't get ahead. The entire economy is designed to hold down a large segment of the population while enabling wealth-hoarding oligarchs to needlessly bleed everyone dry. When you're poor you have practically no access to the courts(unless they're trying to convict you of something), you effectively have no say in the state or federal legislatures. The notion that "democracy" actually means anything in this country is laughable.

Truth in there. In 3rd world nations you pay the cop direct, or judge. Not a system where a swarm of lawyers feed at the trough of 'justice'.

In the free market system or semi free, there will be oligarchs to be sure. If a nation has oil or other highly rated natural resource it can afford to be quite socialist, Norway is one. Without that the 'fair' nations tend to drift into poverty. Germany is about the only solvent nation in the EU. Not so much socialism there as the others till Merkel.

Not gonna argue about struggling poor but really about half are not struggling other than to game the system. They will have their hand out before you every time and get it filled.

Nice I did not see Trump being dumped on here, if only for a bit. Replaced with 'the Jews did it', oh well.

 

[packerfan79]

Anyone trying to sell great wealth as some sort of panacea is not being realistic. Wealthy people have plenty of suffering as well, but that is not the point at all. The persistent and toxic belief is that the poor are simply just jealous and want to live like kings too. Certainly there are some who would if they could, but most people just don't want to be stuck on the constant edge of disaster while the ultra-wealthy oligarchs continue to gain more and more wealth when they already have many times what they need. The poor also want to have a fair share of political power and not be so disenfranchised.

The notion that the struggling poor just have bad attitudes is so toxic. We have worked so hard, and been so resourceful, and yet we still just can't get ahead. The entire economy is designed to hold down a large segment of the population while enabling wealth-hoarding oligarchs to needlessly bleed everyone dry. When you're poor you have practically no access to the courts(unless they're trying to convict you of something), you effectively have no say in the state or federal legislatures. The notion that "democracy" actually means anything in this country is laughable.

This is the zero sum game mind set. You are essentially saying that because some one got rich, someone else got poor. That's not how it works. Look at the tax scheme in the U.S. The wealthiest pay close to half their income in taxes. I get all of my federal withholding back in my tax return.The child tax credit and earned income credit, is 6-8 times what my withholding is. My tax return adds around 10k to my income yearly. That didn't come from a poor person.

I assume you are going to quote some billionaire who claims he pays less than his secretary. I doubt that is true. Ultimately that money has to come from someone, and it surely is not coming from me or you. I am all for reforming the tax system, and shrinking the size of the government. You won't change anything as long as the federal government is so large.

I agree many people work their asses off. I worked 436hours of overtime so far this year. I also work with people who never work OT, yet they complain constantly. I try not to complain (try, it still happens).If you look at the big picture, no one I know lives a 3rd world existence. I really doubt you do.

If the economy was designed to keep you down, you would not have running water, food, sewer, a home. I don't get how people who live in the most prosperous time in the history of the world, can say the things I see here. I guess I am just of a mind set of gratitude.

I guess maybe it's a generational issue. I used to talk to my grand dad before he died, he had nothing when he returned from WW2, he drove truck for 40 years, raised 4 sons, and a grand daughter. He never complained, never. He was grateful to get off of some shithole island in the Pacific crawling with japs willing to die for the empire. Many of his fellow soldiers were not as lucky.



I am sorry you are not as successful as you should be, Klompen. I am not saying you are ungrateful. I know struggle to brother.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

...

no one I know lives a 3rd world existence. I really doubt you do.

...

It felt like I was living in the 3rd world, until I started traveling in it. Seeing truly happy people there was an eye opener. Ecuador, an emerging country, with an average salary of only $380 a month was 3rd on the UN global happiness index. I fell in love with the country and bought a place on the ocean. I go there pretty much every year for a month or two. You can live there on $500 a month. $800 a month and your living, as they say "Like a Gringo". That's rent, food, entertainment... everything. Even HS internet.

When I hear people crying about something here, I always say "3rd world problem" easily fixed here.

 

[Cannavore]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...-50-all-american-workers-make-less-30533-year

https://www.ineteconomics.org/persp...sing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people

https://qz.com/1155448/thomas-piket...ng-a-bad-example-on-inequality-for-the-world/

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...n-america-by-18-million-people/?noredirect=on

 

[Klompen]

Money is freedom in the sense that it is hard to travel far without it - you need to pay the bus fare, or the train fare, for a ferry/boat ticket or to own or hire a car - or for a plane ticket - unless you are truly adventurous and either just walk, cycle or hitch-hike everywhere, but that can get tricky when trying to cross oceans.

The freedom to travel wherever I want to go - and whenever I want to leave - and the choice in how I want to travel has always been an important freedom for me.

The flip side of this is that need for money is servitude in a very literal sense. The massive wealth that the super rich accumulate grants them power to direct the labor of millions of others. If you want to eat, have a roof over your head, or travel for that matter; you had better serve their interests. Some people manage to avoid this to some degree or another, but most people ultimately work for someone in the aristocracy.

One of the perks of the contraband market is that it gives the poor an avenue of commerce that allows them to make money outside of conventional channels, but the flip side is that if you get caught doing so the law will make you an even more literal servant of the rich via prison labor.

 

[Klompen]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...-50-all-american-workers-make-less-30533-year

https://www.ineteconomics.org/persp...sing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people

https://qz.com/1155448/thomas-piket...ng-a-bad-example-on-inequality-for-the-world/

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...n-america-by-18-million-people/?noredirect=on

While I can't get the last link to work because I won't enable scripting on Washington Post's site, this is otherwise an incredibly valuable collection of articles and I really hope that the contrarians here(Packersfan in particular) will read through them properly.

 

[Mengsk]

Klompen I read what you wrote and I agree. Yesum speaks a little bit sideways or tangential in my opinion not entirely sure what to make of all of it. The divisive thing to say, a negative view, taking a low road so to speak would be for me to say you must not have worked hard enough. Or you must not be smart enough. Anyone who doesn't have enough wealth and power is not being big and bold enough to take it for themselves. This sort of thing. Which is just propaganda. The evidence is I do not know you and I feel share quite a similar view as though you are speaking the truth better than the news on tv. Or the current state of affairs rather, from a people's side not a gov't media side.

 

[Klompen]

This is the zero sum game mind set. You are essentially saying that because some one got rich, someone else got poor. That's not how it works. Look at the tax scheme in the U.S. The wealthiest pay close to half their income in taxes. I get all of my federal withholding back in my tax return.The child tax credit and earned income credit, is 6-8 times what my withholding is. My tax return adds around 10k to my income yearly. That didn't come from a poor person.

That isn't what I said at all. NOT. AT. ALL. The money is definitely being funneled upward though. The entire system is designed to do just that. Rent, college debt, credit debt, usury banking, artificially inflated prices on goods and services, and so much more. If you don't see that wealth flows upward I seriously suggest you take an economics course somewhere reputable. Its not simply that the rich are sucking away all the money from the poor; its that the poor are never getting a fair share of it to begin with.

I assume you are going to quote some billionaire who claims he pays less than his secretary. I doubt that is true. Ultimately that money has to come from someone, and it surely is not coming from me or you. I am all for reforming the tax system, and shrinking the size of the government. You won't change anything as long as the federal government is so large.

I wasn't planning on quoting Warren Buffett, but now that you've mentioned it; he's right. If you want to claim Warren Buffett does not know what he's talking about when it comes to economy I am going to have to assume here that you're being deliberately oppositional to anything counterpoint to your chosen narrative.

I agree many people work their asses off. I worked 436hours of overtime so far this year. I also work with people who never work OT, yet they complain constantly. I try not to complain (try, it still happens).If you look at the big picture, no one I know lives a 3rd world existence. I really doubt you do

I've literally lived on the streets, and I can tell you right now that you are so out of touch its not even funny. I've watched poor people line up to use the porta-potty at the local park, and to collect potable water from the splash pad because the park officials padlocked the drinking fountains to discourage vagrants from using that water. I've seen the police sweep through and chase out the homeless with threats of arrest and violence. I've watched local zoning officials threaten landlords for allowing the homeless to use their properties for shelter. I've seen local NGOs and concerned officials back down because aggressive homeless-haters in the wealthy portions of town made it clear that vagrants are not to be tolerated. I've seen people cooking over fire pits in parks because they have no other way to cook and keep warm, and I've seen park officials go way out of their way to stop people from being able to do such things.

I've seen how the shelter system splits families apart, and how many of the systems are abusive toward people and place expectations on them that often don't even make sense. I've also seen how the private support systems, especially churches, make unethical demands of people in order to get assistance that isn't even sufficient anyway. I've also seen children pulled from such situations and put into foster care systems where they are sexually, physically, mentally, and even financially exploited. I know one woman who was one of only 3 survivors from a facility of 9 kids. The rest were sexually abused to death over many years before the state bothered to investigate.

I've seen how poor mothers have to turn to stripping and prostitution just to take care of their kids. I've watched families get involved in producing meth and growing pot despite the risk because they can't keep up with their bills. I've seen people lose everything when the authorities find out. I've seen people get stabbed over these things. I've watched as everything from kids to pets get cast aside as families crumble. I've seen how people's cars and homes fall apart because they can't afford basic maintenance. I can't remember ever seeing any one of these people buy a fucking 500 dollar smart phone.

There is a whole other world in this country you seem to have no clue about.

If the economy was designed to keep you down, you would not have running water, food, sewer, a home. I don't get how people who live in the most prosperous time in the history of the world, can say the things I see here. I guess I am just of a mind set of gratitude.

I don't have these things. I have been staying with someone else during bad weather and using their internet and computer. I'm currently struggling to prepare a dilapidated old property I've been given a chance to move on to but I'm struggling to do that because I have surgical needs I am putting off so I can do the work I need to do before winter gets too bad to finish it. Just because in your anecdotal little bubble you've never seen true austerity doesn't mean it isn't real.

I guess maybe it's a generational issue. I used to talk to my grand dad before he died, he had nothing when he returned from WW2, he drove truck for 40 years, raised 4 sons, and a grand daughter. He never complained, never. He was grateful to get off of some shithole island in the Pacific crawling with japs willing to die for the empire. Many of his fellow soldiers were not as lucky.

That economy isn't around anymore. His generation and the one after it has killed it off. Old timers often just do not get how the old "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality isn't as achievable as it used to be. Its a myth that upward mobility is still what it used to be. Winners and losers in our current paradigm are essentially preselected and very few people break out of that fate.

I am sorry you are not as successful as you should be, Klompen. I am not saying you are ungrateful. I know struggle to brother.

Thank you. I am not even trying to argue I should be "successful" or rich, or even compensated as well as some people are. I just want a say in our system and I want an opportunity for myself and my family. Most people don't even come close to the sort of personal austerity that our little family lives with every day, but its still a struggle even cutting every expense and trying every clever legal and ethical means of supplemental income(salvaging things, selling what we can, doing odd jobs, etc). I graduated high school with all these high expectations for how life would pan out. I had people tell me I had potential and that all I had to do was work hard and this American Dream would just pan out, but that's not what happened at all. I've made mistakes, sure, but there's no room for error in a climate of austerity. You fall, the wolves get you. That's the world I'm living in.

 

[Klompen]

Klompen I read what you wrote and I agree. Yesum speaks a little bit sideways or tangential in my opinion not entirely sure what to make of all of it. The divisive thing to say, a negative view, taking a low road so to speak would be for me to say you must not have worked hard enough. Or you must not be smart enough. Anyone who doesn't have enough wealth and power is not being big and bold enough to take it for themselves. This sort of thing. Which is just propaganda. The evidence is I do not know you and I feel share quite a similar view as though you are speaking the truth better than the news on tv. Or the current state of affairs rather, from a people's side not a gov't media side.

Yeah its pretty hard to get truth from people like Rachel Maddow or Wolf Blizter who are getting paid 20-30 thousand PER DAY. They're in a whole different world and in the world they live in, the economy is just up up and away. They say things like "the economy" is doing better, but they don't even seem to know or care that there's more than one economy.

If you're in the investor class then you rise when the market does. Even when these people fall, they rarely fall to the level of the truly destitute. Just look how Jordan Belforte(aka Wolf of Wall Street) wheeled and dealed and scammed his way to the top and then got caught and went to a prison that is nicer than the living conditions many of the poorest Americans live in. The sad things is, even if you're homeless and get yourself sent to prison on purpose; chances are that you're not going anywhere near a facility that nice. Same thing with Martha Stewart.

Hell, Jefferey Epstein kept underage sex slaves on his private jet and on his own personal island, but he's a billionaire so he worked out a deal where he was free during the day and had to go home to be "in prison" at night. Tommy Chong, on the other hand, sells some glassware and gets thrown in a real prison(where thankfully the other prisoners kept him safe and well-treated).

If I held my breath until CNN even hinted at covering such inequity in our society I think I'd have enough brain damage to not care anymore.

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

Don't you think that eventually the wealth-gap will so decimate the poor that they will rise up - as we have seen in France in the last days, but even on a grander scale - and this will lead to another revolution of sorts?

Or do you feel that its not quite bad enough just yet - and even if it is the media will go all out to subjugate any organized response totally aligned with their 'elite' masters - stifling any so-called 'free-press' there might be - and using every propaganda method available to them - so as to engineer any popular disturbance in their favour?

To actually take down the walls of Babylon - in this day and age - would be a far greater task than just organizing some modern-day Trojan Horse - or would it?

 

[Sertaiz]

it would take a bunch of people working toward a common goal. which is the sort of thing that you use your pineal gland for, which gets messed up by aluminum and that stuff they put in the water.

and yeah, im pretty sure most things are a great play at this point, and we are being led to the belief that we, of our own accord, want one world government. i dont, but if so many bad things happen people will beg for it.
and for the hackers who could get through the digital walls, there will be dudes like in the matrix willing to turn those dudes in for money. would be nice but how to stop the progress of AI? tell me something good here, im an escapist

 

[Cannavore]

Since people like to read quick bullet point stats;




- By most indicators, the US is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. It spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan combined.

- US health care expenditures per capita are double the OECD average and much higher than in all other countries. But there are many fewer doctors and hospital beds per person than the OECD average.

- US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.

- Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the U.S. and its peer countries continues to grow.
U.S. inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries

- Neglected tropical diseases, including Zika, are increasingly common in the USA. It has been estimated that 12 million Americans live with a neglected parasitic infection. A 2017 report documents the prevalence of hookworm in Lowndes County, Alabama.

- The US has the highest prevalence of obesity in the developed world.

- In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.

- America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Turkmenistan, El Salvador, Cuba, Thailand and the Russian Federation. Its rate is nearly 5 times the OECD average.

- The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.

- The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, safety net, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries, and 18th amongst the top 21.

- In the OECD the US ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.
According to the World Income Inequality Database, the US has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries

- The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality characterizes the US as “a clear and constant outlier in the child poverty league.” US child poverty rates are the highest amongst the six richest countries – Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway.

- About 55.7% of the U.S. voting-age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. In the OECD, the U.S. placed 28th in voter turnout, compared with an OECD average of 75%. Registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other OECD country. Only about 64% of the U.S. voting-age population (and 70% of voting-age citizens) was registered in 2016, compared with 91% in Canada (2015) and the UK (2016), 96% in Sweden (2014), and nearly 99% in Japan (2014).


https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533